Storytelling

The Fatal Attraction of Storytelling...

          "Storytelling has a hypnotic power." It’s coded into our

DNA. Not like a frivolous and annoying radio commercial, but a

a genetic message so ingenious in nature that it is the object

of major interest, study and research.

          I remember as a child my mother and her mother

talked as they snapped peas. My grandparents worked

and farmed. Grandma’s voice interested me. I loved her

but no one sounded like her where I lived, in Norfolk,

Virginia.

          The family farm was more prevalent than a family car.

North Carolina didn’t pave many of their roads back in

the fifties. I listened to the familiar voices recalling past

events. When the conversation came turned to

a practical matter and they stopped reminiscing, I said,

          “Grandma tell me another story.”

          “Well, what cha talkin’ ‘bout Frankie,” my middle  

name is Franklin.

          “ About when you were a little girl,” I said. Storytelling

and conversation went together when I spent my youth. And

when a lull arrived in a conversation I could her a dog bark,

miles away or a rooster crow in my grandpa’s chicken lot.